The final days of the 2024 presidential election have begun to take on a decidedly different and some might say alarming tone. To be sure, there is still plenty of talk about tax rates and foreign policy, but there is something else in the air and it was on full display in Washington, DC yesterday when tens of thousands of evangelical Christians gathered on the National Mall for a day of prayers and beseeching the Powers That Be to intervene and help to save America. And how might He do that? By not simply saving America, but by protecting Donald Trump from harm. The event was billed as "A Million Women," but both genders were well represented. The tone quickly took a dark turn, however when the election was described as “a last stand moment” to save the nation from the forces of darkness. (NBC News)

Tens of thousands of evangelical Christians gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to pray for America’s atonement and for Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Organizers of the event, billed “A Million Women,” described the gathering — and next month’s presidential election — as “a last stand moment” to save the nation from forces of darkness. For hours, the gathered masses sang worship songs, waved flags symbolizing their belief that America was founded as an explicitly Christian nation and prayed aloud for Jesus to intercede on behalf of Trump in November.

“If we don’t stand now,” said Grace Lin, who traveled from Los Angeles for the rally and came wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, “then the enemy will take over our country. If that happens, that’s the end.”

There seemed to be few mentions of policy differences between the candidates. Comparisons between the economy Under Trump and Biden/Harris were few and far between. Crime rates were only dealt with as an underlying symptom of a larger, looming threat. The Harris/Walz ticket is a harbinger of doom, while Donald Trump is the Chosen One who can carry the banner of goodness and light forward. In other words, only God can save America from a path leading toward darkness and Donald J. Trump is God's man on the battlefield who will lead that charge.

Am I the only one who finds this a bit more than simply disturbing? To be clear, I'm not here pretending to be some official interpreter of the Will of The Almighty. But I have always found Donald Trump to be something of an odd fit for the evangelical Christians. It's not that Trump strikes me as particularly demonic or anything of the sort, but he was a bit late to the party when you look at his pre-politics history when he was working on The Apprentice and hanging out with the Clintons and his Hollywood friends.

For her part, Harris has been fairly quiet about issues of faith. That doesn't make her "a bad person," but she also hasn't exactly been out there speaking in tongues and hanging with the Holy Rollers. If Kamala Harris spells doom for a god-fearing society, it seems far more likely that four more years of her policies will doom us far more surely than some secret series of demonic dances she's secretly performing in the basement of her campaign HQ.

This contest is a target-rich environment in terms of the stark differences between the candidates and the results their policies produced. This image of Trump as Savior (or at least the Savior's chosen warrior here on this Mortal Plain simply feels off the mark. And it might make some voters who are otherwise inclined to support his policies think twice about it.